Summary
Although still serving archived articles, JavaWorld has stopped publishing new content. It has been a great resource for the Java community, and a lot of fun to be a part of. It deserves some applause.

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JavaWorld has closed its doors. It is still serving up pages from the usual place, but is no longer publishing new content. I would like to take a look back at JavaWorld, and say a few words of appreciation.

JavaWorld gave me my start in writing.
My very first article ever published, "The Lean Mean Virtual Machine," appeared in JavaWorld in May 1996. That article ended up being the first in a series of articles about the JVM, a column called, Under the Hood. The second article in that series, "The Class File Lifestyle," prompted a literary agent to contact me about writing a book. And that led to Inside the Java Virtual Machine, my first and so far only book. After Under the Hood, I wrote two other columns for JavaWorld, Design Techniques and Jiniology.

In addition to writing, I also learned about editing and publishing articles on the web from JavaWorld. As a result, much of what goes on here at Artima.com is informed by what went on at JavaWorld.
The structure of Artima articles, the once-a-week publishing cycle, the top center of Artima's home page -- all were inspired by JavaWorld.

So I am personally grateful for the opportunity I had to write for JavaWorld. I wanted to say thanks in particular to the editors: Michael O'Connell, Jill Steinberg, Carolyn Wong, Jenni Aloi, Theresa Gonzalez, Jennifer Orr, Scott Plamondon. You guys rock. Thanks also goes to IDG, the authors, and everyone in the production staff. It was a great to be a part of your adventure.

This is sad news indeed. JavaWorld was one of the first Java forums that I subscribed to. For a period of time the "Hints and Tips" section appeared to be able to read my mind and had an uncanny ability to post solution to problems that I had been working on myself (splash screens, type safe enumeration), or had avoided altogether (cut, copy, paste in Java).

I assume JavaWorld started out as a labour of love, that grew and had to become commercial in order to finance the resources it needed to maintain itself as it grew. I guess it was unable to continue, either for financial reasons or because one or more key players behind the scenes has moved on to other things.

Bill. Perhaps I should mind my own business but do you have a long term strategy for preventing Artima running into the same buffers?

> This is sad news indeed. JavaWorld was one of the first> Java forums that I subscribed to. For a period of time> the "Hints and Tips" section appeared to be able to read> my mind and had an uncanny ability to post solution to> problems that I had been working on myself (splash> screens, type safe enumeration), or had avoided altogether> (cut, copy, paste in Java).> > I assume JavaWorld started out as a labour of love, that> grew and had to become commercial in order to finance the> resources it needed to maintain itself as it grew. I> guess it was unable to continue, either for financial> reasons or because one or more key players behind the> scenes has moved on to other things.> Actually, JavaWorld was intended as a commercial venture from the start. IDG published magazines on paper, and decided in the early days of the web to try publishing online. And JavaWorld had a lot of money coming in during the heydays of the .com boom, before the advertising recession hit. But apparently it wasn't just the recession that led to JavaWorld's demise. I think IDG lost interest in JavaWorld somehow. For a year they apparently didn't attempt to sell advertising. Once they started trying again, they were able to sell it. And even though many readers complained that the quality wasn't as high lately as in the early days, their page views never really dropped. Perhaps most of their page views were people coming in to their vast archive of content from search engines, not people coming to read new articles each week.

It is possible that JavaWorld could be resurrected. It is quite valuable as an archive and the brand has a lot of good will and recognition. But I somehow doubt it would ever be the same, because part of the excitement of the early years of JavaWorld had to do with being part of the whirlwind of the early years of Java and the web.

> Bill. Perhaps I should mind my own business but do you> have a long term strategy for preventing Artima running> into the same buffers?> Not a long term strategy, no, other than paying attention and being willing to change in response to changing situations. When I first started attempting to turn Artima into something that could generate revenues and not just serve as a brochure for consulting and seminars, I originally envisioned a very JavaWorld-like site. JavaWorld was really a paper magazine on the web. They had some community features, such as a discussion forums, but their prime focus was publishing articles. Their discussion forums weren't really very nice. Anyway, after attempting to make headway by just publishing articles, I realized I also needed (and wanted) to build up the community side of Artima. And that's what I've been trying to do with the software work. Weblogs and Buzz are a part of that. The fact that there's a fairly usable discussion forum attached to everything is part of that.

The nice thing about community is that it is fun to bring people together, but those people also generate content for you. So one way to look the community side of Artima is that I am building tools to enable people to collaborate. I have several other features up my sleeve this year along those lines. And that's one thing JavaWorld never really did much of. I would like the central focus of Artima to continue to be edited articles, and eventually not just interviews. That's why the center column of the home page is articles. But along the left and right sides of the home page, I plan to have a number of tools that enable people to get together and collaborate.

It is sad news, indeed. To my knowledge, reader interest in JavaWorld remained high, and I also doubt commercial difficulties were the primary cause of JavaWorld's closing.

As Bill says, JavaWorld was part of, and perhaps helped create, the early excitement about Java. They started at a time when not much information was available about Java anywhere else. Anyone learning about Java in those days relied to a very great extent on JavaWorld. As other Java publications sprang up, JavaWorld stood apart from the rest by their high editorial standards.

JavaWorld, however, was more than just a publication. In many ways, it was a community of writers, developers, and enthusiasts, all united by their excitement about Java. Each year at JavaOne, JavaWorld hosted an annual awards reception party. That was the party to be at, since it brought together almost everyone that contributed in significant ways to Java's progress. Those times will be sorely missed.

I am personally very thankful to JavaWorld for giving me an opportunity to write and publish, first, in the Jiniology series, and then the Web Services column. The skills and knowledge of the JavaWorld editors will always be a motivating example of a standard to strive for in writing and editing. I would like to thank to editors I worked with for their patience, wit, and professionalism: Carolyn Wong, Theresa Gonzalez, Jennifer Orr, and Scott Plamondon.

Above all, however, I am most grateful for the friendships that I formed while writing for JavaWorld. Thank you, guys, for bringing so many exciting people together, and for the opportunities you've given us!

Sad news indeed. JavaWorld has been serving my weekly Java needs for years, and I'll miss the excellent articles. It's one of the few places on the Web where you could read well-written articles on a wide diversity of Java-related subjects for beginners to experts. Whatever Java-subject I dove into, there was always a great JavaWorld article that got me up and running. I doubt whether there is another Website that offers that.

Thanks to the great staff at JavaWorld, and let's hope Google's cache will live on for a long time :)